Valve tripping mechanism for air stapling gun



y 31, 1956 R. CAMPBELL 2,75

VALVE TRIPPING MECHANISM FOR AIR STAPLING GUN Filed Jan. 15, 1954INVENTOR.

Lff R CflMPBZ-ZA 2667 BY United States Patent O VALVE TRIPPIN GMECHANISM FOR AIR STAPLING GUN Lee R. Campbell, Royal Oak, Mich.

Application January 13, 1954, Serial No. 403,805

Claims. (Cl. 1101) This invention relates to manual air stapling guns ofthe type wherein a fluid pressure or compressed air operated piston andcylinder is employed to propel a staple driver to cause it to sever astaple or other fastening device from a strip of interconnected staples,contained in a suitable magazine and feed structure, and then to drivethe separated staple into and/or through the material to be stapled orsecured in a desired position or location.

The principal object of the present invention is to provide a new andimproved construction of automatic means that will obviate the necessityfor the operator of the gun to manipulate a finger actuated trigger tocause the gun to be actuated when it is brought into engagement with thework at the point where a staple is to be driven.

Briefly, the present invention consists of an air stapling gun of thetype disclosed in the co-pending application Serial No. 246,491 filedAugust 24, 1951, and issued as U. S. Letters Patent No. 2,713,165, onJuly 19, 1955, jointly, by myself, Frank E. Ebert, Alton Lee Shoeningand Le Roy C. Reiterman, and in which compressed air from any convenientsource of supply is fed into a conduit enclosed by the handle of the airgun to a valve chamber from whence it flows, under the control of atrigger actuated valve, through a conduit leading to an air cylinder tocause a piston slidably mounted therein to be driven outwardly of thecylinder to perform a staple driving stroke.

The stapling air gun of said co-pending application also includes astaple driver cooperatively associated with said piston and slidablymounted in a nosepiece having a trackway adapted to receive a singleseparated staple which is in communication with a combined staplemagazinc and feed structure with which said nosepiece is integrallyassociated so that the latter projects outwardly beyond the magazinestructure for ready engagement with the work piece.

The staple magazine and feed structure of said application includes atrack section having a staple-supporting track adapted to slidablysupport a strip of inter-connected staples, and a cover thereforeslidable to and from opened and closed positions, together'with anysuitable feeding means to cause said strip to be fed toward saidnosepiece.

The constructional details, however, of said feeding means may be variedas desired and forms no part of the Patented July 31, 1956 2 descriptionand by reference to the accompanying drawings wherein Figure 1 is a sideelevation, partly in section, showing by way of example, the air gun ofsaid application with an automatic valve tripping attachment securedthereto;

Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure l of the nosepie'ce of said gun andshowing the valve tripping device moved into position to open the airvalve and admit air under pressure to the air cylinder to cause thepiston therein to perform a staple driving stroke and Figures 3 and 4are cross sectional views taken on the lines 33 and .4 of Figure 1. A

As shown in the drawings, the handle 10 of the air gun is connected byan air hose 11 to a source of compressed air which is delivered througha connecting nipple 12 to a conduit 13 that terminates at its inner endin a valve chamber 14 into which projects the enlarged head 15 of avalve 15. The lower end 15 of the stem of valve 15 engages a trigger 16pivotally secured by pin 17 passing through a pair of spaced ears 16 ofsaid trigger and a lug 18 of the main body of the air gun.

When valve 15 is raised off its seat by the trigger 16, the air underpressure is permitted to flow through conduit 19 into the top ofcylinder 21 to cause the piston 21 to propel the staple driver 22through the nosepiece in the air gun of said application, the trigger 16projects to the left considerably beyond the bottom 15 of the valvestem, as indicated by the dotted line showing, for ready engagement by afinger of an operator in' whose hand the handle 10 of the gun isgrasped. When, however, the valve actuating attachment of the present invention is employed, the longer manually operated trigger may be removedby driving out the pivot pin 17 and the shorter trigger i6 issubstituted therefore. The substitution of the shorter trigger is notessential as the longer trigger may be retained so that the gunmay beused interchangeably as an automatic or as a manually operated gun.

As shown, the rear or left hand end of trigger 16'is curled back onitself to provide a bearing 16 in which is pivotally received the upperbar 20 (Fig. 3) of a conhector, indicated generally by the numeral 20,and which consistsof the upper bar portion 21%, the side legs 2'0and'the' lower bar portion 26. The lower bar portion 29 of the connector20 is pivotally mounted in a bearing 'formedbetween a small angle member24 and the downpresent invention which relates to an attachment forautomatically actuating the air valve of an air stapling gun such asshown in said application, but which is capable of general applicationto any type of trigger actuable valve controlled manual compressed airtool which is placed in juxtaposition to a work piece and so that whenthe tool is brought to the desired position the valve may be opened tocause actuation of the tool by exerting a slight pressure on the handleof the tool.

The above and other objects of the prespent invention will pap'e'ar morefully from the following,'more detailed,

.the necessity of drilling screw holes in the air gun.

turned free end 25 of a leaf spring 25, the rear end of which is fixedlysecured to an attachment clip 26 locked in position to the base 30 ofthe staple magazineby any suitable means such as an Allen set screw 31.

The air gun of thesaid co-pending applicationis particularly adapted forthe ready attachment to the magazine unit thereof of the valve actuatingattachment of the present invention because of the fact that the base ofi the track section of its magazine unit is provided with outwardlyprojecting longitudinal beads 30 about which ears 26 of the clip 26 maybe engaged, thereby obviating It will be understood, that the presentinvention is not, limited to this particular constructional detail butthat any suitable means for connecting the attachmentto an. air gun orother tool may be employed v The manner in which the device operates isas follows:

The leaf spring 25 is so designed and so attached to the clip 26 thatthe lower edges of angle member 24 and end 25 of the spring 25 willnormally project beyond the end of the nosepiece 23, asshown in Figurel. When the end of the nosepiece 23 is moved to the position in which itis desired to drive a staple, the operator exerts a slight downwardpressure on the handle 1!.) suflicient to cause ,the free end 25? ofleaf spring to be forced upwardly not as a limitatiom.

ber 14 to conduit 19 and thence to the top of cylinder 21 to cause astaple driving stroke to be performed.

As will be seen from the foregoing description, it is not necessary whenan attachment constructed in accordance with the present invention issecured to the stapling gun,

for the operator to perform a separate manual operation to trip or openthe valve 15, as this function is accomplished by the mere act ofplacing the end of the nosepiece of the gun in contacting engagementwith the work piece and at the same time, exerting sufiicientdownwardpressure on the handle of the gun to move the edges of the downwardlyextending end 25 and angle member bring the end of the nosepiece intoposition to drive the staple at the desired place.

Although I have described the presentinvention as an attachmentparticularly adapted to be secured to an air gun for driving staples, itwill of course be understood 7 that it, is equally applicable to an airgun for driving any kind of fastening devices such as tacks, brads, orthe like.

Hence, the term stapling gun as used in the claims hereunto appended isemployed in an illustrative sense and It will moveover be obvious thatthe invention is equally applicable to any type of pneu- -matic toolemploying a manually operable trigger for opening a valve to cause thetool to be actuated.

While I have described and shown a constructural example that has provenhighly satisfactory in commercial and industrial use, it will, ofcourse, be understood that many changes, variations and modifications ofthe details of such constructional example may be resorted to with-1:011l'. departing from the scope or spirit of the appended claims.

I claim:

1. The combination with an air stapling gun having an air actuatedpiston, a cylinder in which said piston is slidablymounted, a stapledriver co-operatively associated*with said piston, a projectingnosepiece having a staple receiving trackway in which said staple driveris slidably mounted, a reciprocating valve means for admitting air underpressure to said cylinderto cause said piston and staple driver toperform a staple driving stroke, said valve means having a valve stemprojecting from the exterior of said gun, a valve actuating trigger, aremovable pivot pin for detachably connecting said trigger pivotally tosaid gun adjacent to said valve stem, said trigger having a portion forsimplecontacting engagement with said valve stem for raising said valvemeans to open positio'mof an attachment for causing said trigger to beactuated automatically to move said valve means to opened position'whensaid nose piece is pressed into engagement with a work piece to bestapled, said attachment comprising a retractable work engaging member,spring means for normally urging said member in position to projectbeyond the end of said nose piece and a single connector extendingbetwen said trigger and said member to cause the latter to actuate saidvalve to opened position when said member ismoved to a retractedposition against the action of said spring means by the engagement ofsaid member with a work piece, means for pivotally connecting saidconnector at its ends to said trigger and to said 24 'to the retractedposition, shown in Figure 2 and thus member, and means for securing saidattachment to said stapling gun.

2. The combination as set forth in claim 1 in which said spring meansconsists of a leaf spring having one end anchored to said securing meansand a free end having a downwardly extending projection to form saidwork engaging member.

3. The combination with an air stapling gun having slidably supporting astrip of interconnected staples therea on and means for normally urgingsaid strip towards the trackway of said nosepiece, valve means foradmitting air under pressure to said cylinder to cause said piston andstaple driver to perform a staple driving stroke, of a valve trippingattachment for causing said valve means to be opened automatically whenthe end of said nosepiece is pressed into engagement with a work pieceto be stapled, said attachment comprising a retractible work engagingmember, resilient means for normally urging said member in position toproject beyond the end of said nosepiece, a trigger for actuating saidvalve, a removable pivot pin for detachably connecting said triggerpivotally to said gun adjacent to said valve means, means connectingsaid trigger and work engaging member to cause said valve means to beactuated to open position when said member is moved to retractedposition against the action of said resilient means, and means forsecuring said attachment to said stapling gun.

4. An attachment as set forth in claim 3 in which said securing meanscomprises a U-shaped clip having a pair of upwardly extending spacedlegs for straddling engagewith longitudinal recesses for interlockingslidable engagement with said longitudinal beads of said magazine tracksection.

6. An automatic valve tripping attachment fora stapling air gun, or thelike, having a valve controlled pneumatic piston and cylinder comprisinga pivotally mounted valve trigger for engaging and moving the valve ofsaid gun to opened position thereby to admit air under pressure to saidcylinder to cause said piston to perform a staple driving stroke, a workengaging member movable to and from a retracted and an extendedposition, resilient means for normally urging said member to itsextended position into contacting engagement with a work piece to bestapled, a single connecting rod connected to said trigger and member tocause said trigger to actuate said valve to open position when saidmember is moved to retracted position against the action of saidresilient means, and means for securing said attachment to said gun.

7. An attachment as set forth in claimr6 in which said trigger isdetachably pivoted to said gun, adjacent to said valve and is providedwith a valve engaging extension, and means for pivotally connecting theends of said-connecting rod to said trigger and to said work engagingmember. r

8. An attachment as set forth in claim 6 in which the resilient meanscomprises a leaf spring having one end anchored to said securing meansand a lateral projection at its free end to form the work engagingmember,

9. An attachment as set forth in claim 6 in which the resilient meanscomprises a leaf spring having one end the ends of said connecting rodto said trigger and to said work engaging member.

10. The combination with an air stapling gun having an air cylinder, apiston slidably mounted in said cylinder, a valve for admitting air tosaid cylinder to cause said piston to perform a staple driving stroke,said valve having a valve stem, a staple driver having its upper endcooperatively associated in driving engagement with said piston, anosepiece in which the lower end of said staple driver is slidablymounted, of an attachment for automatically causing said valve to beopened to admit air under pressure to said cylinder comprising a triggerhaving an extension for engagement with said Valve stem, a removablepivot pin for detachably securing said trigger pivotally to said gunadjacent to said valve with said extension in contacting engagement withsaid valve stem, a retractible work engaging member, spring means forcausing said member normally to project beyond the end of saidnosepiece, a single connecting rod having one end pivotally connected tosaid trigger and its other end pivotally connected to said attachment,and means for detachably connecting said member to said stapling gun.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS

